Content That malamud69 Likes

Tell them to mind their business. Nothing good will come out of you explaining when you don't owe and explanation it will only feed the blood-sucking drama queens who live to talk about other people's issues. Go to work. Do your job. Go home

If you are not in a nurse monitoring program I can't think it would be too big of a deal. I've known many, many nurses over the years who use Benadryl to sleep very often. If they placed folks in the monitoring program for that there would be many more unfortunate souls out there but the "rehabilitation" industry would be loving the extra profits

Let's be honest it's Nursing. Everybody is going to know because the person you told will tell somebody else & so on & so forth. I simply told everybody in my new unit because I knew word would get out. I don't particularly care what the other nurses on my unit think as I'm simply doing a job when I go to work. My coworkers aren't my family, friends or support system

I'm not sure what point I missed. I think I opened with something like I got a DUI and I regret my poor decision and that I was rightfully being punished by the criminal justice system. Is the goal of PNAP to punish or rehabilitate via treatment. I don't understand the value of any of this "treatment" nor the fact that I can't go back to making a living even though they have a mechanism to make sure that I'm clean and sober via DAU. I don't see how driving a nurse into bankruptcy has any therapeutic value with respect to treating the disease of addiction nor will I turn a blind eye to the fact that that those who "treat" impaired nurses have a vested monetary interest in keeping people in therapy as long as they can. As far as remorse, I'm very sorry for my actions but have no intention of donning a hair shirt nor engaging in self-flagellation over the fact that I made a mistake which had nothing to do with the care of my patients and am paying the full price society demands from its citizens for my actions

I got a DUI. The criminal justice system punished be for my criminal behavior and I regret my poor (criminal) to drink and drive. I respect the courts and cops for holding me accountable to society for my choices as it's their role to protect society at large from people like me who made the choice to drink and drive. I have no respect for what I'm going through now with PNAP. First, they made me get an evaluation of my drinking history by a company that ran an inpatient and out patient rehab center. Guess what? I spent months in both of those facilities and was only deemed fit for discharge when they drained every cent they could from my private insurance. I started in "rehab" about 4 months after my last drink and never would have agreed to subject myself to this facility which was largely filled with young men who were trying to avoid jail for heroin charges and other people leveraged into being there. Essentially it was drunk & dope fiend baby sitting services @ $400 per day. A simple and obvious money grab in a place largely staffed by minimum wage employees. Now I attend weekly "support group" meetings where the therapist reports to PNAP and we are expected to extoll the wonders of the program. Nobody really wants to do this and it has no therapeutic value what-so-ever but we are mandated so we go in order to keep our jobs and pay our bills. I also get urine tested. I think this is the only beneficial part of the program as it forces me to stay clean & even then I worry about false positives with a presumption of guilt (so far so good). I also am forced to attend AA meetings which I loathe. Honestly, I was happier and richer drunk. This program has done nothing for me but limit my ability to make a living and take money from me that I can't afford to spend. I am an alcoholic but what I'm going through now only makes me want to drink now more than ever. I feel like I'm being punished and not treated for the disease I have which is a strange irony in the medical profession. Anyway, I got about 2 more years to go and will keep doing what I have to do but I hate the whole experience and will not ever state otherwise

These programs provide opportunities for redemption to nurses who genuinely need help and supervision to be sure they get it; I remember walking to the office of my first case manager and passing a woman hugging someone and telling her "thank you, thank you, you guys saved my life." The problem is that the net is indeed cast far and wide, so too many people who really don't need these programs are sucked into them anyway, then treated like totally out of control addicts who can't be trusted to make a single move without someone else's OK. I think these are probably the people who complain the most about being treated unfairly--because they ARE being treated unfairly. For those who stole drugs or showed up to work drunk, yes, of course they should own their mistakes, suck it up, do the programs and be grateful for the opportunity to remain in the profession. But I really don't see these people griping about unfairness as much as the people who probably shouldn't be in these programs in the first place.

I think that the "unfair" issue is not that one must participate in a program, but rather the fact that so many of the programs are geared towards one subset of people. I personally do not have an addiction issue, never drank etc. Yet, due to the rampant abuse present in the recovery industry (yes, folks it's an industry and people make big money off people in need of help) I have been labeled and treated as an addict while my real issues have been soundly ignored. I don't have an issue with having a contract so much I resent being forced to engage in activities that are totally irrelevant to my situation. These programs have a one-size-fits-all approach and that does more damage than good. Guess what y'all: 12 step whatever is not the magic fix for all comers and in some cases, can be damaging.
There have been times when i have wished that the BON would have just taken the license instead of punishing me for the crime of having a mental illness.
i have said it before, what is an illness to be treated for most of the population is a crime that must be punished for us. I have spent several years jumping through pointless hoops, attending pointless meetings and paying out the wazoo for unnecessary testing. It has been extremely difficult to get/keep a job due to these restrictions. At the moment, i am ready to give up and try to do something else with my life. Will someone tell me what i did wrong?
Yes, for those who have drug/alcohol issues it can be a great second chance, but the net has been cast far and wide and people without such issues are drawn into it for reasons that have nothing to do with nursing practice. THAT is what people are screaming "unfair" about.
I will never be thankful or grateful for this bull. It has in some respects ruined my life but i will not give up out of sheer stubbornness. To quote from my current favorite binge-watching worthy series, "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum." Don't let the ******** grin you down.

I would definitely check out a professional licensing lawyer. So many of these programs are so $$$$ driven that nobody cares how much you've done for one states program for how long, that if some way can be found to gouge a person for yet more money for more years for more pointless testing, they'll do it.

I would assume the only way Louisiana would honor TPAPN is if the guidelines from both states we're the same. I remember reading about someone who transferred to another state but the new state made them start over because their home state program didn't test for a specific drug that the new state did. It's all a bunch of horseshit. They can all go **** themselves

After seeing what my brother went through to become a doctor, I am glad that med school didn't work out for me. He pays $3000/month in student loans, did not match for residency right away, worked incredibly long hours in residency and is never really free from work. Honestly, I just don't to work that hard.
Nursing is not the easiest work sometimes, but I am very satisfied with what I do.

my first job, when saddled with this contract also was SCARY! in terms of safety issues. i wouldn't recommend that place to my worst enemy. They were consistently, dangerously short handed. They hired a number of monitoring program nurses, possibly because anyone able to work elsewhere would run for the hills. Honestly, I think they did me a favor when they made up some absurd garbage to use as an excuse to fire me (I tended to be very persistent in trying to shield my patients from some of the frightening things that went on there.
These programs do indeed set up up for discrimination, whether it is because of lack of knowledge or pre-conceived ideas of what this is supposed to be. Granted there are positions that really are just unable to accommodate the stipulations, but I should think that most of us would know better than to even apply for such things.
When i interviewed for my current (absolutely fantastic) job, when we got to the point where i was asked if i had any questions, i brought up the contract and the stipulations, The NM interviewing me said "pfffft...that's no big deal...and thank you for being so up front and honest about it. 2 days later i got an offer and after i navigated the program's efforts to burn my opportunity (Lord forbid, we get to succeed at something), I haven't looked back since.
Do not let the program scare you. Do what they tell you, play their little games and know that it will end eventually.
it's okay to vent. This is what this forum is for. Take a deep breath and know that there is something out there....

First off I'm moving out of this godawful state. I'll move to a bigger trauma ER and eventually do flight nursing, maybe go get my CRNA, idk. I'm sure this will offend someone but I'll be getting ******* wasted, I'm talking black out drunk. I've never been much of a drinker but I've spent time with friends this last year where they all drank and I always felt left out. Alcohol was never the problem. I also plan to write an anonymous letter telling the committee and program coordinator what I really think of them and their ideals.

This will probably sound really horrible and get me totally flamed for even saying it, but i will might go out for a nice dinner and order a glass of wine. The caveat is that it is extremely unlikely that i would even drink it because i don't even like the stuff and have never been a drinker to begin with. The dinner out (at least for any reason related to this garbage probably won't happen either, it's just a way for me to mentally think about addressing this experience with a rude hand gesture and that amuses me....just a little.
What i can say that I will do for sure is as follows:
1: never darken the door of any 12-step meeting ever again. While i respect the fact that those have been a life saving tool for many people and that is wonderful, for me it has been nothing but a source of stress, annoyance and repeated picking of the scab of a wound that i have made so much progress in trying to heal, no thanks to this program and it's associated sewage.
2: take the reams of paper that the last 3 1/2 years have and the next 2 will (nothing about this is trustworthy so like the day in nursing school that we were taught "if it isn't documented, it didn't happen") I've kept every scrap of paper from pee test receipts to reports to tax records) generate and burn it like a mortgage. My life will no longer be mortgaged to these people.
And finally 3: i will move on and never look back, except in the offices of my therapists which is where my issues should have been handled all along and where i did not need some uneducated, narrow-minded "program" that has sold itself out to the god of money to tell me to do.

How's all that for a Sunday manifesto?.....from one day counter to another..... 764 left out of 1825